A New Chapter for Nature, Collaboration, and Native Plants At Homegrown National Park® (HNP), we believe in the power of individual action to transform the world, one yard at a time. That’s why we were thrilled to collaborate on the message behind Camilla and the Caterpillars, a new children’s chapter book by Frances Figart, beautifully […]
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Announcing the launch of a brand-new series of videos created for kids in grades K-2 by WonderGrove Kids, in collaboration with Homegrown National Park! These engaging and educational videos focus on the importance of creating habitats for birds, making it easy and fun for young children to learn how they can help nature right in
Welcome to WonderGrove for Birds Read More »
Taking a Local Conservation Approach National: Meet Symbiotic Schoolyard, the new science unit you’ll want in your middle schoolers’ classrooms. Janneke Petersen is looking to spark a nationwide movement of middle school science teachers restoring biodiversity in their schoolyards with their students. Keep reading to learn how you can get involved. By Grace Hassler Est.
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CALIFORNIA MIGHTY OAKS – by Mary Sanichas
A fun, easy-to-read summary of the many ways oak trees hold ecosystems together — with over a dozen links and resource about how we can support them. Perfect for introducing students, neighbors, friends and family to the importance of native oak trees.
Long Live Our Mighty Oaks! Read More »
New York City is essentially a giant ecologic scar with hard, impermeable surfaces stretching out over hundreds of square miles. Natural green spaces are relegated to a few places here and there, and trees poking out of sidewalks struggle to survive. Can an Idea like Homegrown National Park™ even work in a place where habitat fragmentation is so extreme?
Native Planting in Big Cities / by Banford Weissmann Read More »
Coneflower, Milkweed, and Beebalm make up almost 30% of the native plant market. You can find them in almost any garden center on the east coast, and we’re sold and told to plant them every year. But if these native plants are so important, durable, and easy to grow, why don’t we see them in the wild? In truth, these types of plants used to dominate the landscape, but after decades and centuries of altered topography and over development, their habitats have all but disappeared. In the sink-or-swim world of natural selection, native plants have fallen into two camps: specialized and generalized communities.
Where Are All the Native Plants? / by Archewild Read More »
Establishing native species on your property allows for ecosystem processes that can’t be achieved with common lawn grass or ornamentals. If you want to rebuild and strengthen the natural habitat in your backyard, that plan has to include native plants. There are many, many important reasons to start restoring your property with native plants, so let’s start with the basics.
6 Reasons to Plant Native / by Archewild Read More »
The Challenge Bird-friendly backyard programs must succeed. They are the best option for increasing bird populations on a yard-by-yard scale. Bird-friendly programs will fail, however, if they do not start by protecting birds against what is killing birds in yards — unprotected windows. We must recognize that windows are part of the backyard ecosystem. If we do not, the gains in bird population from bird-friendly backyards will be negated by bird deaths hitting windows.
Window Strikes and Native Plants / by Jim Cubie Read More »